Sunday, September 18, 2011
Revise and Dissent
To all of those who are now trying to say that the Afghan War is strictly a a Republican War (this, despite the fact that Democrats have consistently supported it, consistently referred to it as the "good war", and a Democratic President escalated it), here is yet another example of why you're totally full of doodoo. I was watching "Hardball" (a show that I used to like - back when it's host, Chris Matthews, WASN'T partisan) the other night and Chris Matthews had on that David Korn guy. The two of them were commiserating on just how badly former President Bush had screwed up our foreign policy (a point to which I actually agree) and Mr. Korn punctuated the discussion by saying that Mr. Bush should have "finished the job in Afghanistan". Yeah, that's right, FINISHED THE JOB IN AFGHANISTAN - not that we should have never gone into Afghanistan, not that the Afghan War was an illegal war....but that we should have FINISHED THE JOB IN AFGHANISTAN. Please, if anybody out there can prove to me that Mr. Korn's position on this is a minority one in the Democratic establishment, I would certainly love to hear about it.
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26 comments:
Quite frankly, I think both republicans and Democrats want to maintain our military presence in the Middle East. How else do you explain our continued presence there?
Enough is enough...I say target our nukes to the Middle East.Begin at Afghanistan and get all of them...I realize we'd have to lose our friends in Israel but so be it.Wait about six months put on the anti-radiation suits and go in there.Last I knew we could drill through glass.
Rusty,
As I said, it is not about defeat. It is about occupation.
I stopped at a 7-11 the other day,on the counter was a jar asking for contributions to pay for plastic surgery to get David Corn some lips.You ever see this this guy...there's just a gaping hole under his nose.If he was in a horrible accident that caused the removal of his lips...I apologize.
If they are all gone its not occupation.....its discovery.
I sorry too, but you are right about David Corn's lips.
If they are all gone its not occupation.....its discovery.
and of course genocide.
BTW rusty one other small technical problem with your less then stellar idea.
Right after the nukes shear off the tops of oil wells, rip open pipe lines, squash refineries, the extreme heat is going to ignite all that raw and refined oil, sorta the way Saddam did Kuwait circa 1991.
Giving the oil wells ETC six months to burn freely will damage the infrastructure so it all will have to be rebuilt from scratch. However even worse damage to the oil fields themselves underground by allowing too much oil to be released too fast. This would result in limiting future recovery efforts from the underground reserves.
Since the Saudis are already using water injection techniques to hold production up in Ghawar, your plan might just be what kills production in the largest field. You could very well destroy too much of the underground structure and allowing too much water to invade the oil left to be economically feasible to recover.
The already damaged Iraqi fields would become worse, and of course neither Kuwait nor Iran could export any oil either. I'm sure China and the rest of the growing asian economies surly wouldn't be very pleased, so they might stop loaning all the money you're gonna need for the next part of your plan. Good luck getting finance from Europe or Russia.
In essence what you would do essentially is wipe out the vast majority of the oil being exported around the planet, which will crash the economy of the planet totally, at the same time you have to find the tens if not hundreds of billions to rebuild the infrastructure.
Even when you do finally get enough infrastructure to start pumping and exporting the oil, much less oil would be available after all is said and done by your plan.
Bombing to return of exports at minimum would be 3-5 years. Much longer until any sign of economic recovery could be seen. Possibly even a couple of decades. The economic downturn world wide, would make the Great Depression a slight slump by comparison.
You probably would want to rethink it a bit. Hold off of a few economically sensitive areas, IE oil fields, storage and refineries along with shipping terminals. Even if a few hundred thousand Muslims slip through the fireballs.
37927, don't take Rusty too seriously, he's a halfway decent fella in spite of it all.
Got to admit though, given all the crap coming from the Middle East I've thought many times in frustration we need to turn the whole region into a sea of molten glass.
But I think Indian chicks are smoking hot and the fallout drifting their way wouldn't be such a good thing.
Damn number boy....you put a lot of thought into your answer...most impressive,most impressive.
I'm halfway with you about the Indian women BB....but I've always been and remain a big fan of the Sushi.
you put a lot of thought into your answer...
Yea rusty, you might want to try it sometime ... LOL
Actually number boy I was being a bit sarcastic,but it seems that point zipped right by you.Although your boring thesis about what the effects of nuking the entire mideast would do to the worlds oil supply and economy was indeed flummery I would grade it at a B minus.I do intend to print it and if 5mg of Ambein does'nt do the trick tonight I'm sure reading it would certainly put me into a deep sleep.
Oh, and, yes, I third it on the Indian chicks.
besides, we have enough coal, oil, and natural gas in North America to keep us going until somebody invents that solar powered SUV and/or coup.
Natural gas and coal, most probably will,
However we do not have near enough oil to fuel the way of life Cheney stated was non-negotiable. Haven't had since production in the USA peaked in 1970. The first oil shocks happened as we transformed from the swing producer of the planet to another economy trying to deal with the balance of payment problemns of sending ever increasing amounts of capital out of the economy to purchase the fuel it runs on. Hence the economic turmoil that was the 70's until other sources IE Prudohe Bay, North sea Oil and Cantrall (all in terminal decline now, needing new sources of oil to replace them), allowing a tempory return to BAU in the mid 80s to early this century. The problem is even the OPEC countries are hitting their upper limits of ability to pump oil out of the ground, and no real finds large enough to replace the three we had and their super large fields now declining. Oh yea, add to that a couple billion plus new customers for the oil available now a days.
We use 18 million barrels a day right now, down from the high of 21 million barrels a day in 2007-08, we only pump 5.6 million barrels out of the USA with 3-4 million from Canada and 2 million from Mexico. BTW those numbers do not count how much Canada and Mexico use in their own economies.
Quite a bit of gasoline is imported from Europe since over half their local car culture is based on Diesel designs, which leaves all the gas they refine from a barrel, as most barrels of oil refined give limited amounts of diesel/gas ratio. You gas further refine diesel to gas since it is a smaller molecule then diesel, but you cannot very easily create diesel out of gas. Thus Europe has a surplus of gas at the moment from their refineries so we import it. another problem with trying to turn inward and laughing at the rest of the world, middle east in p[articular, is the fact the feed stocks which fuels the European and Asian economies come a lot from the middle east nations. Hence if we just allow the Arab and Persian people to hack away at each other doing any damage they want, the results would be No gas from Europe and very little plastic or other manufactured products from Asian economies. Walmart would be essentially empty, so would sears BTW. Many jobs here that depend on imported gas and imports to sell would go the way home building jobs have in the last downturn.
Our military's involvement in the oil rich middle east, is not just to protect our nation, but to keep the worlds economy moving forward since we rely on so much of the planet for much of what we use here. Returning to the 50's economy might be a great idea for the middle class and balance of payments but that cannot be achieved with our severe dependence on oil and manufactured goods from around the planet.
I know I probably bored rusty to sleep since this is above his 5th grade desire of reading, but sound bite answers do not fit the scope or complexity of the very real problems we face.
We cannot rely on just North American oil unless we shrink the economy in the USA to under 10 million barrels a day. However given the economic damage that occurred shrinking from 21 to 18 million barrels a day, you cannot grow the economy out of the current sump and shrink usage to just North America.
No matter how much people want to, or try to deceive people it is possible. It is not and keep the current structure of any semblance of a middle class at all.
Complicating the energy problem is that the US is beginning to export more than we import.
Another example of corporations putting profit before Country.
Jesus christ....number boy is one gloomy bastard.Is he predicting the end of life as we know it?Is he predicting armageddon?Or is he saying that if we dont adopt his beliefs all is lost? Either way...number boy should make a small investment in a sense of humor.
We'll be running our vehicles on natural gas in the very near future according to Mr. Pickens. Granted, he also has stake in the matter......
No Will,you're wrong we will be running our SUV's long after you and I are gone to the happy hunting ground.
We'll be running our vehicles on natural gas in the very near future according to Mr. Pickens.
Pickens is pushing a plan he stands to make hundreds of millions if not billions from. Not that there is anything wrong with making money, but when somebody is pushing a plan they stand directly to benefit from, I look for other less bias opinions.
Others say he is pushing the next "ethanol" solution which will create more problems then it will solve.
Remember in 2004-2006 Natural Gas was expensive and US production was dropping, only the fracking of Shale gas has restored any balance between pricing and availability for now. There are question of what the real reserve amounts available and at what cost will those reserves be produced at.
U.S. Shale Gas: Less Abundance, Higher Cost
However we still import LNG to meet demand today with very few vehicles running on natural gas or LNG. The current market is in equilibrium with price at a level where producers make enough money to meet demand, and costs are low enough so economically natural gas is competitive for home heating and electrical generation.
Add even 1/4 of the US fleet to that equation and you would need to increase supply by at least 20%. Either large new sources of supply are needed, or the market will resolve with substantially higher pricing.
The second problem is who is going to pay the HUGE costs of building the needed infrastructure to create the locations for customers to fill up with LNG or natural gas?
Pickens wants the US Government to pick up the cost. But congress refused in 2008, 2009 and 2010. I have no problem with Pickens paying to build the required infrastructure, but I am not counting on it, and with out the required infrastructure, nobody is gonna be able to travel the country like they do with Gasoline or diesel powered transport.
Other underlying problems like lower over all speeds and very sluggish response in a Natural Gas power car can be dealt with , but Joe six pack ain't gonna be signing up soon with his big 4 wheelers.
Natural Gas could solve some transportation problems but with out the needed capital and willingness of either congress or private investment, nothing is happening. Pickens talks a lot, but only when he puts HIS money in the game will I believe it is happening.
BTW guess who is against the Pickens Plan?
Pickens' Natural-Gas Nonsense
Yep, cause President Obama came out for it.
Good luck getting the republican controlled house to up one red cent for it.
If presented with the choice between American natural gas and Saudi Arabian oil, I'll opt for the former option (provided, of course, like you say, the feasibility of it) every time. Yes, Mr. Pickens does have a stake in the future sucess of natural gas. But he also had a stake in the future of wind power, too.
Beach Bum: ...don't take Rusty too seriously, he's a halfway decent fella in spite of it all.
Yea, Rusty only WANTS to kill hundreds of millions... it isn't as if he actually could (or would have any say in us doing so).
I'm surprised Beach Bum said this and not Will... although it does look like he's in total agreement with Rusty about hating Muslims. I wouldn't be surprised if Will was in favor of genocide for the Muslims too; he probably just realizes it would be impracticable.
He did support Christopher Columbus' genocide of Native Americans (or, at least he tried to downplay it)...
While at the Fountain of Knowledge....WD did'nt drink,he only gargled.
Yes, wd, I'm totally in favor of exterminating all Muslims. My God, what a complete and facile jerk you are.............As for Christopher Columbus, I examine him the same way that most respected historians do, via an historical context. I know that that's probably too much nuance for your clear cut dichotomies between good and evil mind can handle at this stage. But it is in fact a mainstream concept.
WD said: "I wouldn't be surprised if Will was in favor of genocide for the Muslims too; he probably just realizes it would be impracticable."
How could you be surprised at all by his views on Muslims and Islam. You've been reading his blog for ages and are aware that he has had many posts and discussions on Middle East issues.
Nothing should surprise you about his views on this issue.
Come on, isn't it more likely the case that you just typed this because it sounded good to you and you really didn't think it through?
I agree completely with you on Christopher Columbus, but I don't find it necessary to make unrelated accusations against him which only prove I've not read anything.
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